


The Feathers in Her Hair

by pagerunner



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Perc'ahlia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-08-07 08:09:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7707433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pagerunner/pseuds/pagerunner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Vex starts making changes to the distinctive feathers she wears, Percy begins to suspect she's sending him a sign. Perc'ahlia fic, written between episodes 62 and 63, but without specific spoilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Feathers in Her Hair

**Author's Note:**

> All right, all right...we all knew I had to go for a full-out NSFW fic eventually. ;) Inspired by the artwork and scenario [posted here on Tumblr](http://otachistongue.tumblr.com/post/147233480173/he-almost-missed-it-it-seemed-almost-silly-to), also NSFW.

i.

She’s always worn a feather in her hair.

It was one of the first things Percy noticed when the odd group of mercenaries he’d later call his friends found him in that prison. It had been a dark, unrelentingly grim experience before the day—or night, or whatever hour it might have been—when he'd heard unexpected footsteps and new voices in the corridor, murmuring suspiciously amongst themselves about what they'd found. Considering he was an anonymous, manacled prisoner, someone who might have been responsible for any sort of crime, he couldn’t even blame them. Finally, though, someone broke through and brought a light closer. He'd squinted up through the painful brightness to see the face of a young woman. She looked surprisingly kind, no matter how puzzled she was, no matter how curious about what he might be. And tucked behind her pointed ear was a sudden shock of blue. That color, the first he’d seen in days, was such a contrast to his surroundings that he almost couldn’t breathe.

In retrospect, he knows he’d stared at Vex in that moment. It’s hard enough not to stare now. She’s still so striking, for so many reasons: dark, quick, lithe, and clever, that last one still being his favorite quality. But he’d be lying if he said he didn’t find her attractive, too, especially when she always seems to have a touch of something wild about her—something unchained, unpredictable, ready at any moment to fly. That single blue feather represents so much of it all at once.

He’s never told her in so many words, but that’s why he loves it.

It’s also why he’s unsure what to think when he notices her changing it, as if she’s meaning to catch his eye.

She’s been doing that more often lately in one way or other. She’s always been friendly, even flirtatious, but she’s like that with everyone. It’s taken Percy a while to notice that the little favors she pays him are…distinctive. The kisses, though, do have a way of standing out, and no matter how much he’s trying not to make too much of them, that last one they shared…the sheer gratitude in her eyes and the softness to her touch were something new.

So is that second feather in her hair today, and the way she winks at him when she ties it in.

Percy isn’t quite sure what she’s up to, but the nervous thrill it gives him is not entirely unwelcome. And against all common sense and his usual restraint, he’s finding himself eager to learn what her next move might be.

Fortunately, it doesn’t take long to find out.

—

ii.

“Percy, darling, would you mind giving me a hand with this?”

Vex’s entreaty catches Percy’s ear straightaway, but it takes a minute to disengage from what he’s doing. She does have interesting timing. For one thing, it’s ridiculously early even for her to be awake; he’s only up at this hour because he never properly slept. Moreover, he’s doing delicate work. He’s pouring black powder, working on something that might go very badly if disturbed, and whatever Vex is up to with her bow is surely something that doesn’t require two sets of hands, at least not right away—

“Percival?”

He finishes the pour, caps off a vial, and stands up with a half-relieved, half-exasperated sigh. Still, he makes the effort to settle his expression before turning to face the other occupant of his workshop. “Yes, Vex…?”

He trails off when he sees her there, two feathers in her hair again, and with a look on her face that suggests the quiver she’s holding is the least of her concerns.

“I was having a spot of trouble,” she says, a little too innocently. She’s tilting her head just so, her long neck exposed. The angle also makes the bright blue feathers impossible to miss. “Couldn’t remember what this latest trick arrow you wanted me to test would do, exactly. So before I aim it at my irritating brother…”

Vex draws the arrow delicately from its quiver, holding it at a level before her.

“Would you mind reminding me exactly how badly it would kill him?” she finishes, smiling mischievously.

Percy chuckles despite himself. “Very, I’m afraid. The one you’re holding is explosive.”

“Is it now.”

He nods, stepping up to her. “When propelled at the appropriate speed, this”—and he ghosts his fingers over the arrowhead, very near her grip—“will detonate on impact. Or at least that’s the design.”

“So: lots of little Vax bits, then.”

“I’d advise finding a more neutral target.”

“Hmm.” She adjusts her grip, testing the arrow’s weight. “I’ll keep that in mind. In the meantime…”

She lifts one finger and settles the arrow there, balancing it almost perfectly. She’s barely even paying attention to it, no matter how he’d just warned her of what it might do. She’s focused on him instead, and he’s suddenly riveted. Sweet Pelor, that _smile…._

As he stares, Vex begins lifting up on her toes as if she’s about to lean closer. In that breathless moment, the arrow wobbles. Percy gasps sharply and reaches up to grab the arrow before it falls.

When Vex does the same, her fingers tangle there with his.

“Got you,” she breathes. Whether her words are directed to the arrow or to him, Percy has no idea. But she draws back just before he gets the chance to decide. The arrow—and her hands—slip from his grasp.

“Not to worry,” she says, while he swallows hard. His skin is tingling where she touched him, and his blood is racing entirely too fast to be reasonable. “I won’t drop it.”

“That,” he says, a little strangled, “would be wise.”

“I’ll fire it off somewhere safe. And I’ll be back to let you know how it goes.”

“Actually—“

She blinks up at him. Percy’s startled at himself for saying this—and he realizes entirely too late what it probably sounds like—but the words come out regardless. “I’d like to come and watch.”

Vex grins. “You can do whatever you like, darling.”

It’s hard not to give her a _look_ after a wink so pronounced, but Vex takes that in with merely a laugh before she saunters out the door. The feathers in her hair flutter when she does, as if to make a point. As if to beckon him onward into the early-morning sun.

Maybe even as if in a dare.

Percy’s left to gape after her and wonder. Finally he makes up his mind, leaves his work unfinished behind him, and follows.

—

iii.

He’s starting to feel assured about the pattern of things when Vex changes it again.

Single-feather days are the ordinary ones. They’re days of business more than pleasure, when they’re busy with their missions or with workaday concerns. When he sees a second feather in her hair, things tend to turn out like that day in the workshop: more time to spare, more attention and affection granted. Percy’s oddly relieved when he catches on. It’s like…permission, almost, to let his guard down. He’s only ever done such things with difficulty. But this sort of familiarity…it’s nice.

The tension returns one evening at camp, however, when he glances across the way at Vex and sees her eyeing him while tying a third feather in her hair.

Percy swallows suddenly and looks down at himself.

They’d had a long, uncomfortable day of travel, which ended in some measure of relief once they found a well-sheltered place to camp. Each of them had taken advantage of the nearby stream to wash up, Percy being amongst the first, and so he’s dressed now very simply: just a light shirt, breeches, and his boots. His usual protective layers are still drying by the fire. Vex, for her part, is similarly attired, but she’s even more recently out of the water, and it shows. Keyleth may have helped dry her hair with a handy little cantrip, but she hadn’t turned the magical attention to Vex’s clothes. The lightweight linen is damp in a few places, and it…clings.

Percy sees both that and the way she’s watching him, and he fears he’s beginning to blush.

Knowing he can only blame that on the warmth of the fire for so long, he politely excuses himself and walks a short distance away from the others, into the trees. Vax and Scanlan both shrug, clearly assuming he’s off for the privy or some such. In fact, he’s steering well away from that.

And he’s not surprised at all a short while later when he hears a different set of footsteps following him.

“Percival?” a familiar voice calls softly. “Don’t go wandering off too far. It’s wild country out here. Might get eaten by a bear.”

“Heavens forfend. Besides, I could stay in our own camp for that.”

Vex, rounding a tree, smiles at him. “Oh, Trinket wouldn’t eat _you._ He likes you. Just a nibble, maybe, if you were being bothersome, or…”

“Vexing?” he suggests, watching the leaf-filtered sunset light fall across her hair.

“Hah. Very funny.”

“Well, I am given to understand I possess a certain cleverness.”

Vex arches an eyebrow, then sweeps her freshly done braid over one shoulder. Her fingertips brush across the feathers she’s tied into it. “Fine, then. If you’re so clever, have you worked out what these are about yet?”

“I do have a few theories.”

Vex mimics his tone. “Enlighten me.”

Percy realizes in that moment how close they’re standing to each other. He braces himself briefly with one hand against the tree. “Those feathers…they’ve always been your signature. I remember them from the first.” He smiles a little. “But you do seem to be wanting me to notice them lately. Particularly the number.”

“Hmm,” is all she contributes. Percy has to keep going.

“You’ve been…very friendly on two-feather days,” he says, breathing in deep. Everything smells fresh and green here, full of possibility. “It’s been welcome, I should say. I mean, I’m glad to know when I might—that is, when you’re in an amenable mood.”

“Amenable.”

“It’s a perfectly useful word.”

“It’s a very _Percival_ sort of word. You have a lot of those. Fitting, I suppose, for a man I have to invent _codes_ for to get him to pay attention to basic flirtation.”

Percy gives a self-deprecating laugh. “I admit I’m not terribly fluent in the practice.”

“But at least you haven’t avoided it. And you haven’t said no.”

“That I have not.”

There’s a pause. Vex, regarding him more seriously now, asks softly, “So what do you think three feathers are about?”

Percy looks at her. Looks at her hair. Holds his breath and risks it, just a little. He reaches up, quivering with these still-unfamiliar nerves, and touches her braid, tracing over the edges of that third feather. “Do you want me to tell you what I think,” he asks, his voice low, “or may I show you?”

Vex’s wide eyes meet his. She doesn’t answer, but she looks so _expectant._ Percy lifts his hand enough to tilt her chin up. He’s still being cautious, still watching, still judging, but she isn’t pushing back or darting away.

 _Oh, to hell with it,_ he finally, abruptly thinks. _Do it, Percy._

And on that admittedly unpoetic thought, he bends down to kiss her.

Their lips meet only softly at first, but Vex’s hands soon come up, tugging him closer by the collar. A small, shared hum reverberates between them, and then his hands are around her waist and her arms are twined around his neck and oh, gods, the _warmth_ of her; it’s so good that it aches. His lips part for a gasp, after which there’s nothing for it but to let that follow into an open, delving kiss. Vex answers it eagerly.

They’re both panting for breath by the time they come to their senses, and still closely entwined. Percy’s vividly conscious of the brush of her hair and those feathers of hers against his skin, not to mention the soft press of her breasts against his chest. He’s also suddenly aware that she’s quite likely noticing the pressure of…other things.

Self-conscious again, Percy draws back a step. He’s still touching her, though, her skin so tantalizingly warm beneath that lightweight fabric that it’s hard to let go. And oh, that color on her cheeks—

“You’re _smirking,”_ Vex says, teasingly accusatory.

“Me? Well, you’re the one blushing.”

“ _Blushing?_ That’s just nonsense.”

He opens his mouth to dispute the point, but she takes the opportunity to push up onto her toes and kiss him again. She is entirely, Percy manages to think, too clever about the way she does this, and then for the most part he stops thinking at all. The pleasant glow deep within him has built much higher by the time she lets go of his captured lower lip.

“We shouldn’t stay,” Vex whispers, even while she lingers close enough for him to feel her breath. “They’ll start to wonder.”

Suddenly careless, Percy answers, “ _Let_ them.”

Vex gives a little shiver. Her hands bunch in his shirt again before she lets it all go with a sigh. This time she’s the one to step back. She’s smiling, though. “Not just yet,” she says, before a third kiss—this one to his cheek—and a proper withdrawal. What Percy sees most as she spins around is a flicker of familiar blue.

“Watch for the feathers,” she calls over one shoulder, and then she vanishes from sight.

The sun finally slips below the horizon when she goes. The fire she left behind is the part that doesn’t fade.

—

iv.

Over the next couple weeks, Percy takes Vex exactly at her word.

He’s doing his best to be subtle, especially around the others, but he’s keeping an eye on Vex for every little signal. Two-feather days may be nice enough now, but he’s always hoping for three, and for their little resulting trysts outside of camp or in quiet, sheltered corners—or once, in a painfully exquisite tease, in Vex’s doorway. He’s so often gripped by the idea of her, and more significantly, his own growing knowledge of desire. It's something he’s long deferred, but he can’t push it away anymore. Feeling such a _need_ for her like this…

It is, he has to admit, driving him to distraction.

Their friends _have_ to be catching on by now. All this nervous energy has to be radiating out of his very pores. But for whatever it’s worth, only Keyleth has really paid enough attention to start giving him odd little looks. He’s avoiding most of her scrutiny by retreating to his workshop and focusing far too intently on one project or another. In response, Vex has begun teasing him—within the earshot of others, damn her anyway—about how feverishly productive he’s been.

“ _Something_ must have inspired you,” she says one afternoon, winking broadly at him. She doesn’t even try to hide it. Scanlan of all people is standing _right there_. “I wonder what it was.”

He makes a private vow right then to get her back for that the very moment the opportunity presents itself.

And one late evening in the mansion when he spies a fourth feather in her hair, he follows her upstairs to make good on his word, too.

It’s his footsteps echoing through dark corridors this time, a candle snatched off a hallway table as the only light. Two quick raps on a certain bedroom door—one soft call of “Vex’ahlia?”—and then he steps inside, his heart in his throat, to find her already waiting. His light falls across bare skin and rumpled blankets, casts teasing shadows behind the hand between her thighs. Percy watches in increasing disbelief, because somehow he still wasn’t prepared for this: for one slim hand toying with the pinions in her hair and the other sliding against already-wet skin, and Vex openly staring at him, biting her lip and breathing heavily. He very nearly drops the candle.

But he isn’t about to leave her to her task alone.

“Be quick about that, Percy,” Vex whispers while he puts the light down, locks the door behind him, and disrobes. Quickly is one thing; sexily, he thinks with a certain ruefulness, might be another. But she sounds pleased enough with the results when he stands straight again and approaches. A deep-seated nervous impulse reminds him of what she’s about to see—not just battle scars but older ones, stranger ones, from those days in prison and at Ripley’s hand—but she pulls him close anyway and draws him into a kiss. All at once it doesn’t matter.

Nothing does but her.

And gods, the _sounds_ she makes when his lips meet her skin, when his fingers follow, when he starts working his way down…

He has a few deliriously heady moments of feeling Vex squirming beneath him, opening to him eagerly, before Vex gets her wits about her and quickly, decisively flips them over. Percy lands on his back with a surprised little puff of breath, then looks up to see Vex straddling his chest, still poised very near his mouth. She looks all at once proud of herself and just… _wanting._ Even in this sparsely lit room, her eyes are so bright.

“There we go,” she breathes, settling herself. One hand braces against the headboard; the other trails down her torso, stopping right where he’d kissed her between her breasts. “Back to work, de Rolo.”

He deliberately licks his lips. “As my lady commands,” he says hoarsely, and that makes her shudder and softly moan even before his tongue delves into her again.

The sound shoots through him in deliciously obscene ways. Percy redoubles his efforts.

Vex is so wonderfully responsive to it all—and they’ve both been building to this for so long—that it doesn’t take long before she’s twitching and trembling, and her moans are becoming downright filthy. Once, under a slow, deliberate lick, she looses a whimper that arches Percy’s spine. He’s having a harder and harder time keeping his hips still. Vex, feeling it, turns her flushed face for a look over one shoulder and her breath hitches again on a gasp. “Oh,” she says, before her voice goes deeper, almost into a purr. “Oh, _Percy.”_

He isn’t collected enough for speech right then, but his hands tighten where they’re gripping her. Vex looks down at him, eyes dancing.

“Want some help with that, darling?”

He’s never quite as free with his curses as Vex, except in certain heightened moments, when tension builds past the bearing of it and he’s caught in the extremes. There’s absolutely nothing to be said in this one except for a ragged, desperate, “Fuck, _yes.”_

Vex smiles, then she shifts lower down his body. There’s something almost tender in her expression suddenly, and he wants to focus on that, wants to remember, but as soon as she reaches for him and guides him into her, all he can do is _feel._ The warmth flares straight through him, and his eyes squeeze shut at the intensity of it. He _makes_ himself look again, though—gods, this isn’t something he wants to miss—and he’s soon captivated by watching her as she tries to adjust to him. It’s gradual: a gasp and a wriggle, a twist of her hips that makes him groan, and then, with her mouth still parted, a purposeful lift. Percy holds himself back through her next slide down and the slow rise back up. After that, he does his best to meet her rhythm. When he rocks into her at just the right angle she lets him know it; her resulting cry is so enthusiastic it probably wakes half the mansion. Percy doesn’t care. He just makes note, holds on tighter, and thrusts even harder. Again. And again. Soon enough they’re both sweating, both shaking, and Vex’s balance is wavering as everything starts to crest, but Percy _knows_ he can do this—can keep her steady even as he picks up the pace, driving them through this until it’s all too much to hold and it _explodes_ —

When she comes, it’s with a sound unbelievably raw and unguarded, and a sudden, arrhythmic clench of her muscles around him. It pulls him right over the edge with her as she topples forward. Percy catches her after the fall, holds her carefully as the last aftershocks jolt him, and then, subsiding, he gathers her close. She’s still shuddering softly, making him gasp with every pulse.

Finally she stirs enough to meet his eyes again. There’s something so vulnerable in that look that it stills him utterly. Then, because it’s Vex, she gives him a cocky smile.

“Well, _that_ was a most satisfactory performance,” she says airily.

“Oh. Well.” He breathes in deep. “Was it now.”

“I might just have to keep you.”

Percy feels a crooked smile cross his face as Vex taps his nose. Then she draws her hand back, studies him more closely. She’s not usually difficult to read—her expressions are so vivid, her emotions always laid bare—but there’s something oddly complex in her eyes again. Something he remembers from a long time ago, in a very different darkened room. He brushes her hair back, touches that first, familiar feather, and answers her the only way he can.

“You know I was already yours,” he says softly.

She catches her breath, then bends down to kiss him. Percy holds on and gives her his all.

It’s what he’s always done, after all.

—

v.

So a few days later, when she traipses into the breakfast room with _five_ feathers in her hair, Percy goes wide-eyed but listens raptly as she says, “Five’s too much for me alone, darling.”

And she pulls one feather loose, holding it out before him in invitation.

“Your choice this time, darling,” she whispers. “As soon as you decide? Give me a sign.”

He takes that single blue feather, keenly aware of the brush of her fingertips and the smile on her lips as she kisses his cheek, and feels a sudden, wonderful rush of possibility even as she turns to fly away.


End file.
